{"id":54809,"date":"2016-05-19T12:47:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T19:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=54809"},"modified":"2016-05-19T12:47:49","modified_gmt":"2016-05-19T19:47:49","slug":"bullet-proof-vehicles-and-may-day-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/05\/19\/bullet-proof-vehicles-and-may-day-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"BULLET PROOF VEHICLES AND MAY DAY RALLY\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.."},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

After Minister Athulathmudali got hurt in the parliament where a bomb \u00a0was planted by JVP , J R Jayawardane was concerned about the safety of the ministers in the cabinet.Meetings of the cabinet was held in the current office of the Foreign Ministry , and I was invited during my tenure \u00a0to inspect the cabinet office and advise on bullet proofing all windows and the floor .<\/p>\n

Then secretary to the cabinet of ministers who refused to take even hamper gave the order to carry out bullet proofing by installing bullet proof glasses on all windows ( even the ones facing of the CID as their was a suspicion that conspiracy may be hatched within the forces<\/p>\n

I am not sure whether 8 mm thick hardened steel plates are still protecting the floors of the cabinet room today ,By that time minister Montague Jayawickrama has imported a Land Rover and I was requested to making it \u00a0bullet proof by installing hardened steel on floor board ,boot and bonnet and windscreens and door glasses which were replaced with bullet proof glasses<\/p>\n

That is how the leaders of the country wanted to save money ,rather than ordering\u00a0 expensive tailor \u00a0made vehicles spending colossal amount on money<\/p>\n

This same vehicle would have saved the president R Premadasa ,who traveled in the same land rover on that fateful day with Babu ,if he did not get down to waving a white handkerchief.<\/p>\n

I was in the May day rally with my staff of the corporation where I was the chairman ,and I saw the President driving passing the parade near the current Dimo office and same land Rover with Mohideen sitting in a combat attire \u00a0,in the front seat and President sitting in the back seat observing all the cheering supporters .<\/p>\n

I told my colleague that he will be safe as long as he stays \u00a0inside \u00a0that vehicle \u00a0\u00a0To his query I replied that I made the \u00a0Land Rover bullet proof !<\/p>\n

It was unfortunate that he got down from the car where Babu was waiting with a bicycle to blow him off<\/p>\n

With above story I want to emphasize the fact that a bullet proof vehicle of 600 million of 10 million will not save any leader when the time comes<\/p>\n

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera After Minister Athulathmudali got hurt in the parliament where a bomb \u00a0was planted by JVP , J R Jayawardane was concerned about the safety of the ministers in the cabinet.Meetings of the cabinet was held in the current office of the Foreign Ministry , and I was invited during my tenure \u00a0to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}